Here’s the lat­est from the Whale Muse­um… On June 5th, CetaceaL­ab spot­ted Springer (A73) with her sec­ond calf off of British Columbi­a’s north cen­tral coast. The Depart­ment of Fish­eries and Oceans Cana­da (DFO) lat­er con­firmed the new addi­tion. Springer’s first calf, Spir­it was born in 2013. This sum­mer marks the 15th year since Springer was suc­cess­ful­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

Roche Har­bor Trails Mike Buet­tell, vol­un­teer trail builder will lead us on a hike through the exten­sive trail sys­tem next to the Roche Har­bor Resort. Mike and his group of vol­un­teers are proud of the trail build­ing and main­te­nance and you will want to return and explore on your own. When: Sat­ur­day July 22, 1:00 to  Con­tin­ue Reading

Hel­lo Oakies! I hope every­one is enjoy­ing the sun­shine — looks like sum­mer made it to the Islands after all, and won’t be let­ting up in the near future. This Sun­day’s fore­cast says full sun, so be sure to bring plen­ty of water and a hat for our work par­ty. We’ll start at the sum­mit  Con­tin­ue Reading

by There­sa Simendinger In col­lab­o­ra­tion; the SJ Trails Com­mit­tee, and Island Rec spon­sored the great idea from the Land Bank and the Nation­al Park Ser­vice of a fam­i­ly event, hik­ing out to Brig­gs Lake, for the Fam­i­ly Nature Club on June 4th. On a bright spring-like day, youth leader Ava Mar­tin, 11, and friends set  Con­tin­ue Reading

Local pho­tog­ra­ph­er extra­or­di­naire Chris Teren is the Nature Con­ser­van­cy’s Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Month. Check out Chris’ awe­some pho­to of the Auro­ra Bore­alis and read some back­ground on his pho­tog­ra­phy career… “Right after col­lege, I had a rough break up. I was break­ing up with the Rocky Moun­tains. I loved them dear­ly, and they loved me  Con­tin­ue Reading

Christianson’s Rosy Day out and LaCon­ner The first stop on this excur­sion is LaCon­ner. A beau­ti­ful des­ti­na­tion with muse­ums, unique shops and fine food for brunch or lunch. Then on to Christianson’s to hear Rebec­ca Reed, of David Austin Ros­es, describe char­ac­ter­is­tics and qual­i­ties of vari­eties. Her talk will instill con­fi­dence and inspire you to  Con­tin­ue Reading

Do your part to pro­tect our island wildlife San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park pro­vides habi­tat for many species of ani­mals. When you vis­it the park, you are vis­it­ing their home. The choic­es you make have a direct effect on the wild ani­mals that live here. By fol­low­ing the sim­ple steps list­ed here you can  Con­tin­ue Reading

Coun­ty shell­fish har­vest­ing areas show excep­tion­al water qual­i­ty An annu­al eval­u­a­tion of water qual­i­ty found that all eight com­mer­cial har­vest­ing areas in San Juan Coun­ty showed excep­tion­al water qual­i­ty, result­ing in no Coun­ty clo­sures. In con­trast, statewide this year, six of the 105 com­mer­cial har­vest­ing areas were closed and 16 addi­tion­al areas were list­ed as  Con­tin­ue Reading

Bren­dan Cow­an, Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment shares this weath­er alert… The Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice is fore­cast­ing high west­er­ly winds for lat­er on Tues­day in the east­ern parts of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This could mean gusts of up to 50mph in some island loca­tions lat­er on Tues­day after­noon and evening. This  Con­tin­ue Reading

Hel­lo Oakies! Thom returns from back East this week and has his eye on inva­sives removal for this week­end’s work par­ty as well as limbing/piling. There’s the pos­si­bil­i­ty of burn­ing the piles from our pre­vi­ous work par­ties, but that will depend on the weath­er. Odd­ly, a high of 65F is expect­ed! When? Sun­day, May 21 10:00am  Con­tin­ue Reading

Accord­ing to a War­ren Miller ski film we watched sev­er­al years ago, it is quite pos­si­ble when in the Tahoe area to find many busi­ness­es closed with signs hang­ing on their doors say­ing “Pow­der Rule” when moth­er nature dumps beau­ti­ful, fluffy pow­der snow at the local ski resort. Well, it was­n’t beau­ti­ful fluffy pow­der here  Con­tin­ue Reading

Biochar, a char­coal made from woody bio­mass that stores car­bon and improves soil, is an emerg­ing option for for­est own­ers to gen­er­ate income and remove excess wood from dense­ly stocked forests. Biochar can increase agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, improve soil fer­til­i­ty, and help mit­i­gate cli­mate change. This work­shop will take you through the steps to turn low-val­ue  Con­tin­ue Reading

Val and Leslie Veirs share this announce­ment with you… Dear fam­i­ly and friends, Leslie and I are writ­ing to let you know that Scott is tak­ing a big step to try to improve our long-term efforts to help the whales. For 15 years we have installed and main­tained a net­work of hydrophones and streamed, via the  Con­tin­ue Reading

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the 19 com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who com­pet­ed 60 hours of class­room and online train­ing to become WSU San Juan Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers.  As Mas­ter Gar­den­er Interns, these vol­un­teers will con­tribute 50 hours of ser­vice in their com­mu­ni­ty, help­ing to iden­ti­fy plant prob­lems, insects, and dis­eases, and pro­vide research-based gar­den­ing infor­ma­tion at Farm­ers Mar­kets, Infor­ma­tion Booths  Con­tin­ue Reading

Don’t for­get — Reser­va­tions are required pri­or to April 28th — Par­tic­i­pants in this class will assem­ble a 12” hang­ing con­tain­er with grow­ing medi­um, choice starter plants for sun or shade expo­sure and plen­ty of free advice. Bring your own gloves, tools, bev­er­age and snack. Though a con­tain­er and plants are pro­vid­ed you may choose to bring a  Con­tin­ue Reading

The SJI Gar­den club is offer­ing anoth­er host­ed excur­sion… Christianson’s Rosy Day out and LaCon­ner The first stop on this excur­sion is LaCon­ner. A beau­ti­ful des­ti­na­tion with muse­ums, unique shops and fine food for brunch or lunch. Then on to Christianson’s to hear Rebec­ca Reed, of David Austin Ros­es, describe char­ac­ter­is­tics and qual­i­ties of vari­eties. Her  Con­tin­ue Reading